Ras Boateng — CEO of the National Health Insurance Council
The Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority, Ras Boateng has met the Board Chairpersons and Managers of the 15 District Mutual Health Insurance Schemes in the Volta Region at Keta. The meeting was at the instance of the schemes to address concerns of the Boards and Management. Mr. Boateng appealed to all Board Members and Managers of all the 145 District Mutual Health Insurance Schemes in the country to concentrate on their core function of registering all residents of Ghana into the National Health Insurance Scheme and providing them financial access to quality health care. He reminded them that they have been put in charge of the single most important social programme in the country today.
Mr. Ras Boateng thanked them for the record achievement so far and urged them not do anything to derail the exercise to register pregnant women into the scheme. On conditions of service, Mr. Ras Boateng said he and the council inherited the present salary structures at the Authority and in the schemes. Both the council and the Authority recognize that the lack of conditions of service and low remuneration of staff of schemes are a major disincentive. However everything is being done to address the problem.
As a first step, council has approved a Human Resource Manual prepared by the Authority. As soon as it is printed copies will be made available to all scheme Boards for adaptation. The Council last year approved a 40% salary increase for district scheme staff. This year it has approved another increase which is before the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.
On the other hand staff of the Authority have not had any salary adjustments. The objective is to bridge the salary gap between scheme staff and authority staff. The Council has also directed the Authority to come out with proposals to increase the allowances of Scheme Board members as well as ex-gratia awards. Mr. Ras Boateng has since left for Cape Coast to have similar meetings with Board Chairpersons and Management of Schemes in the Central Region.
